


The Snow King

by RembrandtsWife



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Magic, Gen, Hockey, Ice Skating, Off-screen Relationship(s), Pies, Snow and Ice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 18:27:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8928292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RembrandtsWife/pseuds/RembrandtsWife
Summary: Who will break the spell and free Prince Jack from the ice demons?





	

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt for the day was Christmas Magic, and [ereshai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ereshai) said she loves magical AUs. And my mind went--here. Not explicitly Christmasy, but this story owes something to "The Snow Queen", something to "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", and possibly a little bit to "The Princess Bride". I had enormous fun writing it. Enjoy!

Once upon, there was a boy who was a prince, and his name was Jack. His father was a noble and well-beloved king, and his mother was a wise and beautiful queen. The prince was favored by all the people of the kingdom, for like his father before him, he was a mighty ice warrior from a very young age.

Every day he put on his thick armor for protection from the cold and his magical shoes which allowed him to walk and run and fight upon the ice, and with his club in hand, he went forth and trained at his father's side to fight the ice demons who continually besieged the kingdom. The ice demons hurled icy boulders and rocks and even spears of ice longer than a man is tall, but Jack and his father and their warriors batted them away with clubs and sent them raining down upon the demons until they fled.

Always Prince Jack and his father King Robert and their warriors were victorious, yet always the ice demons came back once again to besiege their kingdom. And the prince became afraid that someday, when his father was gone and he himself was king, he would not be victorious against them, and the ice demons would overrun their land.

This fear grew within him as he grew older; perhaps it was a spell cast by one of the demons. It began to cripple his warriorship, so that he was more often injured in battle. Some of the nobles of the court began to murmur, wondering if he would become unable to fight. "If he cannot be a warrior, he cannot be king," they said.

His father the king spoke to his counsellors, and a wise old woman came to him. "I have a potion," she said, "which will calm the prince's fear, so that he can fight upon the ice as he used to do. There is one condition, however."

"What is that?" the king asked.

"He must not drink strong spirits while he takes the potion. He may drink beer or wine, but the herbs of the potion would be corrupted by strong spirits. And he must take the potion every day, without fail."

"My son is wise enough to abide by this condition," said the king. "Prepare the potion, grandmother, that my son may be well."

So every day Prince Jack drank a measure of the potion against fear when he broke his fast in the morning. Although he was now a young man, he foreswore strong spirits and drank only wine and beer in company, and milk or pure water if he could. And the fear left him, and he became an even mightier warrior on the ice than before, so great that his father the king retired from the battlefield and stayed at home while his son led their troops against the ice demons. 

A young warrior named Kent soon became Jack's lieutenant and his best friend. He was, indeed, as good a warrior as Jack, though he was not of noble blood. One day when they were celebrating a great victory with a banquet, Kent said to Jack, "My prince, why do you not partake of spirits at our banquets? Wine and beer are ordinary drinks, while spirits are for warriors like ourselves!"

Now, Jack's father the king had told him that he must not tell anyone about the potion against fear, lest they find him unworthy because he depended upon a wisewoman's herbs. So he did not wish to tell Kent and disobey his father, yet neither did he wish to lie to a friend. Thus it was that Kent soon had the truth out of him, in private.

Kent kept the prince's trust and said nothing to anyone about the potion. One day, however, he was travelling alone in the mountains when a band of ice demons set upon him. Fighting alone, he was soon overcome despite his great skill and dragged away to their lair in the frozen hills. "Tell us what makes the Prince such a great warrior!" the chief demon growled. "Tell us, or we will chop you up and leave your pieces to freeze to death on the rocks!"

By threats and torture and spells, the ice demons wrung the secret of the potion from Kent. Then they enchanted him to do a dreadful deed, at the same time warping his memories so that he knew not why he must do it nor why he should not. The next time Prince Jack and his troops were called forth to do battle with the ice demons, his lieutenant Kent mixed strong spirits without color or taste into the water the prince carried with him. Jack did not know that as he drank his water, the spirits mingled in his body with the potion, which he took without fail every day. And in the very midst of the battle, the potion turned to poison in his veins and he fell, helpless. As Kent fled for shame and the troops scattered in confusion, the ice demons dragged Jack away to their lair.

The whole land went into mourning when news came of the prince's fall. The king and queen despaired, for they had no other children. After a moon, Kent came to them and said, "Your son the Prince is not dead, but a captive." And he told the story of how the ice demons had captured and enchanted him so that he did harm to the prince, poisoning him with strong spirits. Then he fell on his knees before the throne and said, "My life is forfeit, for I have become a traitor."

The king and the queen wept, but the king said, "You are a great warrior and were my son's dearest friend. I shall not take your life, but I do banish you from this land, never to return. Go hence, and may fate treat you more kindly than it has treated us."

Heavy of heart, Kent left the throne room and was escorted by the other warriors to the borders of the kingdom. Meanwhile, the wise old woman who had concocted for Jack the potion returned by night and spoke with the king and queen. "I know by my arts that your son is indeed not dead, but captive. The ice demons have imprisoned him in a block of ice in order to make him one of them. If he is rescued in time, all will be well, but if not, he will become an ice demon himself and turn against his own land and people."

"I will send the fiercest ice warriors in my troop!" the king declared. "They shall set him free."

"No," said the wise woman, "not by war shall he be freed, but by love. Send word round about that whoever frees the Prince and brings him home may become his spouse."

This the king did, though he had many doubts. He also secretly instructed two other of his ice warriors, great friends whose names were Ransom and Holster, to go forth and seek for his son, but they went forth into the wilderness and were not heard of again.

Now far away in the south lived a boy named Eric. He grew up in a land of sunshine and warm showers, of lush pastures and fields of wildflowers, a mild and pleasant land where the demons of both fire and ice were mere rumors. There young men wrestled with bulls and bears and wild boars for the mere sport of it, but Eric preferred to stay home with his mother, learning the arts of cooking and baking. Because he was small of stature and gentle of demeanor, he was known in his small village as Bitty.

Yet despite his gentleness, Bitty had a dream. He had a great desire to go to the lands of the north and battle against the ice demons there. Ever since he had heard of such things as a small child and seen pictures of the icy lakes crowded with noble warriors fending off the ice demons, he had wanted to join them. Other boys made sport of him when he talked of it, and his father was doubtful, but Bitty would not be deterred. Wherever there was a stretch of ice for a time, he practiced what he could learn of the skills of ice battle, disguising his labors as a kind of dance.

At last, when Bitty had risen to manhood, his parents saw that he would be satisfied by no other fortune and gave him their blessing to go north and seek the ice warriors. Nevertheless, his mother gave him a pie tin, a measuring cup, a spoon, and a rolling pin to put in his sack, "For you never know when you could feed a hungry person," and his mother's mother, who was old and very wise, gave him a box of recipes, "for soups, and pies, and good things to eat, and maybe some of them are for potions". 

So Bitty set forth with his pack on his back, the rising sun on his right, the setting moon on his left, and the wind at his back to seek his fortune as an ice warrior in the north.

He wandered here and there, without any aim except to head northward. In some places he studied with warriors of the ice who were willing to teach him; in others, he earned his keep for a while by cooking and baking delicious things, until he was ready to move on. His pies more than his fighting gained him a name, along with his warm heart and friendly demeanor, and he was welcomed wherever he went.

But always he moved northward, with the sun at his right and the moon on his left, though the warm south wind grew fainter and fainter the farther from home he went. Eventually he began to hear tell of a kingdom bordered by hills of ice and snow, besieged by ice demons who had stolen away the son of its king.

A troop of ice warriors on patrol brought him before the king of the northern land, Jack's father. "They tell me you are an ice warrior," said the king, looking Bitty up and down.

"I am," said Bitty. "And a baker, too."

"My only son was stolen away by the ice demons. He lies under an enchantment somewhere deep within their mountain fortress. If he is not rescued in time, he will himself become an ice demon and the enemy of his own land and people. I have said that anyone who can rescue him shall be his consort and rule beside him. Are you willing to try?"

The king was a handsome man, but he looked sad and weary, with furrows in his brow and dark shadows beneath his eyes. The queen likewise appeared to be a beautiful woman who had wasted away with illness and grief. Few were the ice warriors who guarded their thrones. Bitty's heart went out to them, and he raised his chin proudly. "I will try, and I will succeed, sir!"

The king ordered that Bitty be given the best armor and weapons that could be found for one of his stature and escorted to the icy plain where Prince Jack had collapsed during battle. One of the burly warriors who escorted him pointed north and west into the mountains. "The demons were taking him that way. I was there, I was seeing them." He clapped Bitty on the back, a blow that almost toppled him. "Good luck to you, little baker."

Bitty crossed the ice plain on his bladed shoes, far more swiftly than the king's warriors could. On the far side he found a trail that led into the woods and followed it, feeling the land rise beneath his feet and the air grow yet colder around him. These woods were not like the warm and humid forests of his southern home. The winds cut sharply between the trees, slicing like the claws of ice demons, and the evergreen trees swayed silently instead of rustling.

As the sun was setting to his left, Bitty heard three chirps of a bird. He had only a moment to think how odd it was that he had heard no birds before; then he was struck from behind and knew no more.

When he awoke, he was in a place warm and indeed rather stuffy, with the noise of many people moving about. A boy younger than Bitty, with thick black hair and dark eyes, leaned over and peered into his face, then shouted, "He's awake! Your money or your life, sir!"

"Chowder, chill," said someone else, and the black-haired boy was drawn away. In his place there appeared a young man a little older than Bitty, with long flowing brown hair, wide green eyes, and a mustache that looked like a great caterpillar upon his upper lip.

"You'll have to excuse Chowder, he's still an apprentice. Can you sit up?"

Bitty realized that he was lying down. His head hurt a bit, but he was able to sit up. The fellow with the caterpillar offered him a red cup filled with a strange brew.

"Have some tub juice. Make it myself. So, I'm Shitty, and this is Lardo. Welcome to the robbers' den, or as we like to call it, the Haus."

Bitty sipped at the tub juice, which was some sort of spirits of a truly unusual flavor, and peered at the tiny dark-haired girl who answered to the name of Lardo. "You're all robbers?"

"Well, technically," said Shitty, "Lardo's the robber, I'm the robber's bridegroom, Dex, Nursey, and Chowder are apprentice robbers, and Ransom and Holster over there are our hostages." He pointed to a couple of very tall fellows by the big fireplace.

"Ransom! Holster! I heard about you! You went looking for Prince Jack soon after he was abducted."

"You know about Prince Jack?" said the dark-skinned warrior, Ransom. 

"Yes! I came from the south to seek my fortune as an ice warrior, and when I heard about your prince, I decided to try to rescue him."

All of the robbers looked at one another and then back at Bitty. "You're an ice warrior?" said the red-haired boy called Dex.

"Yes, I am! Well, and a baker."

"If you're a baker," said Lardo, "could you bake us a pie for dinner? 'Cause, strictly speaking, we are robbers and we did capture you, so you kind of owe us something."

"Oh, of course," Bitty said. "I see you have a good fireplace. What ingredients do you have around the house?"

The available ingredients amounted to an onion, a potato, some dried fish (a thing which Bitty had never seen), and what might once have been a loaf of bread. "Goodness gracious," Bitty murmured, but he opened his pack and got to work.

The robbers all agreed that the dish Bitty made from those few ingredients was the best thing they had ever tasted. In return they agreed that they would go with him to seek the prince and set him free. 

All of them except Lardo had fought as ice warriors and prepared themselves for battle. "Somebody's got to hold down the fort," she said. "Have fun storming the castle."

The following morning, Bitty led the ascent of the mountains, flanked by Shitty and a stranger who met them on the trail. "My name is Johnson," he said, "and I'm here for meta reasons." Behind them came Ransom and Holster, then Nursey and Dex, then Chowder to guard their rear. 

The higher the trail went, the colder and thinner grew the air. Not far beyond the Haus, trees ceased to grow; they clambered amongst bare rocks slicked over with ice. At last, weary and sore-footed, they came to a plateau that was filled with a perfect lake of ice, beyond which lay a great cleft in the side of the highest mountain. "That's the hall of the ice demons," said Johnson. "That's where we'll find Jack. We need to stop and camp for the night so we can all rest, and so Bitty can make some pies."

Johnson produced a camp stove in which he swiftly kindled a fire, then from his pack unloaded so many good things that Bitty could only gasp with astonishment. He made a rabbit stew to be shared amongst the troop for dinner, then prepared three pies, wrapped them in cloths, and buried them near the stove to bake overnight.

In the morning they rose with the sun and packed up all their gear. Bitty gave one pie to Johnson to carry and one to Shitty and put the third in his own pack. Then they strapped on their magical bladed shoes and set out across the lake of ice.

Hardly had they set blade upon the ice than a band of demons surged forth from the mouth of the cave, roaring and hurling missiles at them. Bitty and his men leaped into action, and all were astonished at how quickly Bitty could skate and how soft his hands were on the warrior's club. Again and again they drove the rocks and balls of black ice back at the demons, knocking them aside, only to have yet more demons sally forth. At last Bitty circled round and called to Shitty, who skated near him. "I'm going to sneak inside," he said. "Tell the others to try to get past the demons and get into the mountain!"

It was not difficult for Bitty, small and speedy as he was, to slip past the great hulking ice monsters and into the cave which was their fortress. Inside it was dim and difficult to see, but the floor underfoot was the same smooth ice, as smooth as polished crystal or a mirror's glass. Bitty skated forward, his club at the ready, until suddenly cool blue flames rose up all about him, and he saw that he was surrounded by the ice demons.

"Another foolish mortal has come seeking the prince!" said a deep, booming voice. A great ice demon, bigger than any they had seen so far, came lumbering forward. He wore a circlet of iron set with burning blue gems and a huge blue gem upon his breast. "Another foolish mortal to decorate our halls!"

Looking about, Bitty saw that the walls were covered with ice, and in the ice were many small human bodies. The prisoners in the ice had lips of blue and frost coating their heads, yet their open eyes stared as if they might perhaps wake if they were ever made warm. Bitty's heart broke with fear and pity, yet he did not back away nor even lower his club.

"Where is he? I've come for Prince Jack and I'm not leaving without him."

The sound of the ice demons laughing at him was the most awful sound Bitty had ever heard. Still he did not back away, although he flinched when someone touched him.

"It's me," said Shitty. "The others are coming--we've got your back."

Bitty turned back to the chief of the demons. "Me and my friends have gotten past your warriors and into your fortress. I think you'd better give up Prince Jack before things start to get hostile."

Again there was the terrible booming laughter of the demons. "Little man of the south," said the demon chief, "I see the fire in your heart and the weapons you carry. They have no power here. Here is the heart of the cold that will prevail forever. When the mortal prince becomes one of us, we will go forth and conquer the world." 

The demon chief turned and pointed with a long clawed finger. Where he pointed, two torches flickered with a cold blue light, and between them was a great block of ice shaped like a throne. Within the ice there sat a young man about Bitty's age, with the dark hair and handsome features of the sad king. Bitty heard the other robber-warriors gasp in recognition and skated closer to the ice, watching the demons clustered about lest they attack him. He looked upon the prince's face, and it, too, was sad, and empty. The king's eyes were a warm dark brown, but the prince's eyes were the same pale cold blue as the coldest ice.

"He will be ours soon," the demon chief said. "So I say to you, little man, we will not stop you. If you can free the Prince from the spell, you may go and take him with you. But if not, you and your friends will join our larder in the ice." He grinned with glistening crystal-blue teeth.

The demons backed away as Bitty skated closer to the Prince. Seeing that he could skate all the way around the throne of ice, he circled the Prince three times with the sun and three times with the moon, muttering charms. This had no effect, except to make the demons snicker.

Backing away, he let down the sack from his back and opened it, to search for the pie he was carrying.

"No, Bittle," said Johnson. He was holding the pie Bitty had given him to carry. "Genre conventions demand that you do things three times, so first my pie, then Shitty's, then yours, okay?"

"O-kay." Bitty took the pie.

"Don't worry," said Johnson, grinning. "Riddling words from strangers are always helpful in stories like this."

Pie in hand, Bitty skated back to the seated Prince within the ice. "Heya, my name's Bitty," he said to Prince Jack. "I came from a long way away looking for you. I thought you might like this cherry pie I baked."

He placed the cherry pie in the lap of the frozen youth. To his astonishment, the ice around it began to steam and melt. The robber-warriors cheered, but the steam soon puttered away, leaving most of the ice intact.

"Shitty!" Bitty called out. "Bring me the pie I gave you!"

Shitty quickly brought him the pie. Once again Bitty took it to the enchanted prince. "Cherry is a good pie, but where I come from, pecan is a specialty. If you've never had it, you really should give it a try." He set the pecan pie down next to the cherry pie, which was beginning to frost over, and looked hopefully into the prince's face.

Steam rose around the pecan pie, and rivulets of water began to run down from the throne onto the ice. The demons growled and rumbled, but Bitty, gazing at the prince, saw only a faint flicker of his eyelids that he might have imagined.

"Okay." Clenching his fists, he skated away to where he had left his backpack and took out the third pie. The demons nearest him made soft threatening snarls in their throats as he glided up to the prince. 

"Your highness--Jack--I know it's real cold in there. You're probably used to it by now, but it's not healthy for a person. And gosh, you probably haven't eaten anything in ages. Aren't you hungry? You need to have a bite to eat and a hot drink. I'm not sure about the drink, but I do have one more pie you might like. I'm not sure what inspired me, but it's something I've never tried before--an apple pie with a maple sugar crust. I hope you like it...."

Before he put the pie down on the prince's lap, Bitty thought about the camp stove Johnson had set up. He thought about the fireplace in the robbers' Haus where he had made them dinner (and breakfast). He thought about the many places he had earned bed and board along the way by cooking and baking, taking whatever they had to hand and making food that people ate and praised. He thought about the hours he had spent training to be an ice warrior and his fleetness on the ice. And he thought about the warm kitchen back home, in the lands of the south, where his mother and grandmother had taught him to cook and bake and brew when other boys were fishing and bull-wrestling and quarreling with one another.

The pie in his hands grew warmer and warmer, until it was almost too hot to hold. Wondering, he set it down on the throne of ice, between the pecan pie and the cherry. At once a great gust of vapor rose up from the ice, along with a great fragrance of apples and maple and spices. Rivers of icemelt began to pour off the throne; the demons standing around gnashed their teeth. Cracks appeared in the throne of ice, with great cracking noises, and the melt began to spread so that water ran down the icy walls. The demons shouted their rage, but Shitty and the others circled behind Bitty, ready to fend them off if they attacked. 

The smell of the apple pie grew stronger and was joined by the scents of cherry and pecan, as if the pies were warming in an oven. Bitty wobbled and slipped as the very ice under his skates began to melt; reaching out for something to hold onto, he grasped the hands of the prince, from which all the ice had melted away. He could hear that his friends, behind him, were fighting off the enraged ice demons, but he could not take his eyes off the prince, watching the ice melt and crack, splinter and fall away, as the cold white hands in his grew warmer and softer.

At last there came a moment when the prince's eyelids fluttered. It was not Bitty's imagination. Prince Jack closed his eyes, then opened them again, then blinked. Tiny flakes of ice landed on his cheeks and melted away. He opened and closed his mouth, worked his jaw a bit, and licked his lips.

"Wow, I've been sitting still way too long. And something smells really good."

Shitty and the others cheered madly as Bitty helped the prince to his feet. All around them the people prisoned in the ice were stirring, emerging, weeping or calling out as they stumbled forth. With one arm around Jack, Bitty turned to the chief demon.

"Are you going to keep your word, or do I have to melt this whole place down? I'll do it if I have to!"

The ice demons all shouted and snarled, but their chief waved them to silence. For a moment he could only grind his teeth; then he said, "I will keep my word. You and all the rest may go. Go now! And remember, I did not promise not to attack your lands!"

"Go ahead and try it! My friends and I--and the Prince--will be there to drive you back."

And Bitty turned his back on the chief demon, took Prince Jack firmly by the hand, and marched out of the ice demons' cave.

"My name's Bitty," he said, as they emerged into the sunshine. "Your father said I could marry you if I set you free."

"Really?" Prince Jack looked carefully at Bitty for a long time, then smiled. "I think I can work with that."

They returned to the robbers' Haus to fetch Lardo, who allowed as how it might be time for a change of career. "Pretty sure these so-called ice warriors need someone to manage their affairs, y'know?" No one knew what had happened to Johnson, but the rest of them--Bitty and Jack, Shitty and Lardo, Ransom and Holster, Dex, Nursey, and Chowder--returned to the court of Jack's father, where Jack and Bitty were wed, and they all lived happily ever after.


End file.
